Back Wax, Nair, and Hot Pink Hair

My husband is a hairy man with a long history of spa treatments gone wrong.

Once, some guy at the pool saw Jesus in his back hair, so he asked me to wax it. I bought a kit at the supermarket, and “followed” the directions. After a lot of blood, sweat and tears (none of which were mine); he had the smoothest left scapula in the world. The rest of his back: still a jungle. I offered to at least do the right side to match, but he was crying too hard to answer.

A few years later, with my daughter’s pool party nearing, he again attempted to tame the werewolf within. This time he used one of those chemical hair removers and he waited until I left for the Gym. He realized quickly that his arms weren’t long enough to reach all the way around his body, so he jumped in the shower. And turned it on. The water spread the chemical, and by the time I got home he looked like he had mange.

We finally had it waxed professionally. It looked great for a few days, then the stubble emerged and the itching began. After weeks of “a little higher . . . no now lower . . . a little to the right . . . I mean left,” I traded in my back scratching days, and we’ve never spoken of hair removal again.

And, though I’ve yet to see Jesus in the curls, last week I was pretty sure his back hair smiled at me.

Unfortunately, the top of his head has not fared much better.

Cursed with a 36o degree cowlick (which he generously passed on to our children), my poor husband has endured more bad haircuts than a Poodle with a blind groomer. Most of those cuts ended in a quick buzz at home, which then left him looking like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family.

He tried once to grow his hair long, as though he could somehow outsmart it. The cowlick won. For six months his hair grew out and up, but never down. His dreams of rockin’ the ponytail were crushed. I, on the other hand, considered it an answer to prayer.

Still nothing compared to the time he decided to go platinum. Let’s just say, he looked like one of those albino gorillas . . . and not in a good way.

Even with such a sorted history, my husband still agreed to dye his hair pink for my daughter’s first gymnastics meet. To match her leotard. I worked as a receptionist in a hair salon once, so figured I could do it myself. The process seemed easy enough; bleach it out, then put on the pink. Two days ago, we went for it.

Really the whole thing could have gone very wrong, but it didn’t. Despite him looking a bit like a troll doll, it might be my favorite hairstyle yet. More importantly, my daughter thinks he is just about the coolest dad ever, and can’t wait to show him off to all her friends. He will be quite a sight on Saturday at the gymnastics meet, and I could not be more proud.

God tells us to submit to one another in love. It isn’t this idea of one person ruling over another. The word literally means to “be on the same team.” One of the greatest ways we can express love, is through support. God is asking us to stand by one another, to believe the best for one another, to dye our hair pink for one another. He is asking us to say; “I’m on your team.”

There are people in our lives today, who need us on their team. They need us to go to bat for them, to guard them, to defend them, to receive the pass that they might score. There are people who need you on their bench to cheer for them, and to go in for them when they are too tired to play. There are people who simply need to know that they are not alone.

Yesterday, a woman from our church had a lumpectomy and her daughter-in-law asked my husband to go up and pray for her. His pink (the color of breast cancer awareness) hair, was the sugar she needed to make the medicine go down. As my husband sat with her in the hospital, for that moment, he was on her team and she was not alone.

We may not always understand what others choose to do, but God does not ask us to understand. He asks us to love. I am glad that my husband is on my team. I think everyone could use a little more pink hair in their lives.